An excellent sport which I played regularly in school, both recreationally and competitively. The objective of the game is to put a round ball into the net and score more goals than the other side.

The game is played on a field that can be as wide as 100 yards and as long as 130 yards. Each team has 11 players, one of whom must be a goalie. Players typically are divided into forwars (strikers), midfielders and defenders. All players except for the goalie must not use any part of their arms in play, the goalie can use all parts of his body. Each game lasts 90 minutes plus injury time, where time lost during stoppages of play are added on (the clock runs continuosly).

Players are not allowed to physically attack other players, you can "tackle" the other player and take the ball, but you can only slide for the ball, not the legs of the other player. You can't elbow, yank on another person's shirt, deliberately kick or push another player. If you possess the ball however, you are allowed to stick your arm out to stop another player's attempts to shove you (you can't shove them however). Infraction of the rules can result in a foul (free kick awarded), yellow card (warning, 2 and you're done), or red card (kicked out of the game, banned from next game).

Football can be boring to watch (but skill is appreciated), but playing in it is very exciting. Nothing beats the satisfaction of successfully executed teamplay or the joy of coring a goal. Penalty shootouts are the most exciting part of any match (if it comes down to that after overtime). At 12 yards, you are given a free shot at scoring with nothing but the goalie in between you and the net. You must judge between choosing for accuracy or power. Accurate shots are usually slower and stopped easier, but if it is toward the top corner the goalie has a very slim chance of getting to it. A powerful shot can miss the goal entirely or go right toward the goalie. But he will have less time to try to block it.

The "Football" is also the slang name for the briefcase carried by one of the President's flunkies everywhere he goes which contains the launch codes for the United States NuclearArsenal. Without these codes, the weapons can't be ordered to be launched.

Football in England is a big sport. Although its mid-90s popularity peak has passed, the game is still an important aspect of many people's lives. A lot of professional football is played, with numerous tournaments, extensive TV coverage (extensive to the point of overreaching itself and collapsing from the financial pressure), and a following of millions. This is an explanation of how it all works.

How is football organised in England?

There are 92 fully professional clubs, ranging from the world-famous - e.g. Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal - to such obscurities as Exeter City and Boston United (from the bustling metropolis of Boston, Lincolnshire). Clubs compete in two main types of competition - league and cup.

League games represent most of the football played in a season, and are the main indicator of a club's level of success. The league system is divided into four divisions - the Premier League at the top, and the First, Second and Third Divisions beneath it. Over the season (lasting August to May), each club plays each other club in its division twice, being awarded three points for a win and one for a draw ("tie"). At any time during the season, if two or more teams are equal on points, goal difference is used to separate them. This is simply the amount of goals scored by a team in its league games minus the goals conceded. If goal difference is equal, the team with more goals takes the higher position.

In the unlikely event that, at the end of the season, two teams have the same amount of points and have scored and conceded the same amount of goals, their positions are decided by a play-off.

Cup tournaments are simple knockout competitions, with clubs randomly drawn to play each other in each round, usually at one club's ground or the other. There is no seeding in English domestic cup competitions, although in most cups, the higher-ranked teams enter sometime after the first round. Cup competitions take up less of a club's time than the league, but that doesn't mean they're not taken seriously.

What trophies do clubs compete for over the course of the season?

The 92 professional clubs are split into four divisions as described above. At the top is the Premier League, currently sponsored by Barclaycard, officially known as the FA Barclaycard Premiership, and holding 20 teams. The team finishing top at the end of the season wins the Championship, the top honour in English domestic football. This team and the teams directly below it (currently three) gain entry to the heroically misnamed Champions League, the biggest European club competition. A certain number of teams below them gain entry to the UEFA Cup, the other major European cup tournament. For both competitions, the exact quota of teams from England is decided each season by UEFA, the European governing body. Meanwhile, the bottom three teams in the Premiership are relegated to the First Division.

Which is, of course, the second highest division. The 72 professional clubs below the Premiership all compete in the Football League, which is a much older body. This consists of 24 clubs each in the First, Second and Third Divisions, which are of course really the second, third and fourth, being below the Premiership. Until 1992 the numbering made sense - the Football League governed all clubs, and the divisions were called One to Four. But around this time the top clubs grew agitated by the lack of money in the game, and football's general nadir in the 1980s, and broke away to form the Premier League. The Football League is currently sponsored by Nationwide building society.

In Divisions One and Two, the top two teams are promoted to the division above. The next four compete for promotion in the playoffs. The bottom three teams are relegated from the First, and the bottom four teams from the Second. This way, the composition of all four divisions changes every year. In Division Three, the top three teams are promoted, and the next four compete in the play-offs for the fourth promotion.

The playoffs work like this: The top and bottom of the four, and the two in the middle, play each other in two-legged semi-finals. The winners of each meet in the final (one-legged), and the winner of that match takes the final promotion place along with the automatically promoted teams.

The bottom two teams in Division Three are relegated to the Conference. This is a division of 22 semi-professional clubs lying somewhere between full-time and amateur football: each season it promotes the top team and one playoff winner to the Third Division. Being relegated to the Conference (also currently sponsored by Nationwide) is an enormous blow for a professional club; in recent years, few teams have returned. Below the Conference, which relegates three teams every season, lies the realm of amateur football.

So what about the cups? The most important is the world-famous FA Cup. In principle, any team in the country can compete. Hundreds of completely obscure amateur sides do so every year, and a few, after an intense round of qualification games, reach the first round of the competition proper. They are joined by the teams from the Second and Third Divisions, and some from the First - all professional clubs qualify automatically. The remaining clubs from the Premiership and First Division join in the third round. The sixth round is the quarter-finals, the seventh the semis, the eighth the final, and the eventual winners gain a place in the UEFA Cup, as well as lots of glory. If they have already have a UEFA Cup place by virtue of their league position, they assume the FA Cup berth and the league berth for the UEFA Cup passes to the league team below them. FA Cup matches are one-legged, taking place at one of the team's home grounds, except the neutrally-venued final and semi-finals. Draws are settled first by replays, then extra time, then penalties.

The second most important cup is the League Cup, known colloquially by whoever happens to be sponsoring it (currently brewers Carling). Previous sponsors have included Coca-Cola and Worthington. The League Cup is open only to the 92 league sides and is much newer than the FA Cup. In principle the two are equally difficult, but the League Cup is less prestigious. The winner gains a place in the UEFA Cup, although this has long been a matter of dispute. Games in this competition are two-legged (except for the final), and draws are settled by extra time and then penalties.

In domestic football, the only other notable cup competition is a corporate-sponsored trophy (currently known as the LDV Vans Trophy), competed for the by the teams in the Second and Third Divisions. It's a reasonably big deal for the clubs involved, as the final involves a big day out (currently at the Cardiff Millennium Stadium) and prize money for the winners.

These competitions cover all of the notable domestic football played in a season by the professional clubs. Ultimately, how good a club is will be judged in terms of its league position. The top Premiership clubs, such as Manchester United and Arsenal, are multimillion-pound businesses with superstar players. The lower Premiership clubs, e.g. Southampton, are fairly famous among the general public but not at such a high level. level. Players in the Football League, although they may be heroes to a few fanatical locals, are more or less low-profile.

Well, there's the other side of the coin. While uniting countrymen, football (and the other major sports, I'm sure; football is just my handy example) has the unfortunate effect of inducing a sort of xenophobia in fans and may even awaken the old grudges. A random person in a shop today told me that he hoped the English team got to play Germany again; his response, when I asked why, was: "To get them back for what they did in the war!"

There is still a certain restlessness noticeable in English fans when England plays Germany. This is why the 1966World Cup Final (when England beat Germany 4-2) is still the proudest moment of many people's lives. This is also why England fans cheer extra hard when their team is playing Argentina, or even France. Yes, apparently some people still hold a grudge about 1066.

The necessary pitch is actually quite simple: the field is painted or otherwise marked with lines up to 12 cm thick. Below are the standard lines for a soccer field, with the required lines in bold:the two shorter boundary lines, known as goal lines
the two longer boundary lines, known as touch linesa halfway line
a center mark, with...
a circle of radius 9.15 m = 10 yards around it
a goal area, also known as a six, around each goal, consisting of a box bounded by two 6-yard lines drawn perpendicularly from the goal line 6 yards (5.5 m) from each goal post, and the horizontal line connecting them.a penalty area, around each goal area, consisting of a box bounded by two 18-yard lines drawn perpendicularly from the goal line 18 (16.5 m) from each goal post, and the horizontal line connecting them.a penalty mark located 12 yards (=11 m) perpendicularly from the center of the goal.This can be scraped into the field by the referree, if necessary
a penalty arc, consisting of the portion of a 10-meter-in-radius circle about the penalty mark that lies outside the penalty area
a corner arc, or quarter circle of radius 1 yard, drawn in each corner of the field.

The regulation soccer match is 90 minutes in length, consisting of two forty-five minute halves. Between the halves is a halftime of approximately five minutes.

In competition play, when the score is tied after regulation time is up, several steps are taken. First, stoppage time is added, obstensibly to make up for the several minutes of time taken up between plays. After this, two five-minute overtime periods are conducted, after which the teams begin a Penalty Shootout. Should all this fail to break the tie, the teams begin a short Sudden Death period, after which the game is declared an officialdraw.

Stoppage of Play

Play stops when one of the following occurs:

A goal is scored
The ball goes out of bounds, but a goal is not scored
An infraction occurs
The ball becomes defective
A player is injured

Substitutions

A team may substitute one of their extra players for a player on the field when...
...that player is injured and needs to be replaced
...that team is taking a throw-in
...either team is taking a goal kick

Each team may make two such substitutions per half, although since there are only three subs and players may not reenter the game once substituted, a team may not use all four opportunities. The exception is substitution for injuries, which is free for that team. However, the ref must give the other team a free substitution at the same time, if that team desires it.

Restarting Play

Play is restarted after a stoppage in one of several ways. When a new half begins, or a goal is scored, play restarts with a kickoff. At the beginning of the match one team is randomly chosen to kick off, while the other will do so in the second half. When a goal is scored, the team on which it was scored takes the kickoff. A kickoff consists of one player on the kicking team moving the ballforward on the referree's signal. Until this, the opposing team may not enter the center circle. After the ball has been moved forward, however, it is fair game.

The Second restart is the throw-in, which occurs when one team propels the ball across a touch line. The other team selects a player to throw the ball in bounds. This must be done with two hands on the ball, with the ball thrown over the thrower's head. In addition, at the time the ball is released, both of the thrower's feet must be on the ground.

Another restart is the goal kick, occuring when a team propels the ball across the opposing goal line, but does not score a goal. One player on the other team positions the ball anywhere within the goal area and kicks it. The only limitation is that it must leave the penalty area before it is played.

When a team propels the ball across their own goal line, the other team restarts the ball with a corner kick in the corner closest to where the ball left play. The team taking the kick places the ball anywhere within the appropriate corner arc and kicks it. This is often a prime goal-scoring opportunity for the kicking team.

When a player breaks the Laws of the Game, the Referree takes certain action depending on the severity of the offense. Most offenses merely receive verbal warning. However, a player may be officially Cautioned and shown a Yellow Card for...
...dissent
...persistent infringement
...unsporting conduct
...delay of game
...failure to respect and acknowledge the referree
...and MORE!

When a player commits a secondCautionable Offense, that is, after he has already been shown a Yellow Card, or when he or she commits a Sending-Off Offsense, he or she is ejected from the game and shown a Red Card. Sending-Off offenses include...
...serious foul play
...spitting
...swearing
...denying an obvious goal-scoring opportunity by breaking the Laws of the Game
...violent conduct...
...and more

When a player is sent off, his team must play with one fewer players for the remainder of the match.

The football (soccer ball) is a unique-looking piece of sporting
equipment. Instantly recognizable even to someone who don't know what
a yellow card is, the football itself is a black-and-white pattern
of geometric shapes inflated into a sphere. Upon closer inspection,
one can see it's a mixture of white hexagons surrounding
black pentagons. Why not just use all the same shape? Ask
Plato.

The Greek philosopher Plato gave his name to the platonic solids, familiar to gamers as the standard set of
gaming dice. They are the only three-dimensional shapes
that have sides made of regular polygons, and are
therefore useful as "fair" dice, that is, dice that have an equal
chance of landing on any side. These shapes are the 4-sided tetrahedron
(triangles), the 6-sided cube (squares), the 8-sided octahedron
(triangles), the 12-sided dodecahedron (pentagons), and the 20-sided
icosahedron (triangles). Hexagons, sadly, cannot form a platonic
solid, and 10-sided dice are not platonic solids.

While it might make sense to build a football out of a dodecahedron,
the more sides the polyhedron has, the closer it represents a true
sphere and the less strain there is on the stitching and leather when
inflated. A football is actually an icosahedron. Granted, it doesn't
look like it's made of triangles, but that's because the triangles
have been combined into groups of five and six: pentagons and
hexagons.

If you unfold an icosahedron, the twenty triangles that comprise it
look like this:

Notice that each vertex of each triangle, when folded up, is
connected to exactly five triangles. This is obvious in the middle
rows. The top and bottom rows are made of five triangles each, so when
they are folded together, these tips will join five triangles
together.

If we split each of these triangles up into 9 triangles, we get the following:

Now erase the six lines in the middle to combine those six triangles into a hexagon:

/\
/__\
/ \ hexagon inscribed
/ \ in a triangle
/\ /\
/__\____/__\

This leaves three small triangles at the corners. Since each corner
connects five triangles, when the icosahedron is folded up, these
triangles will form pentagons. It's interesting to note that the hexagons
and pentagons are therefore all made of equally sized triangles, which
is why the pentagons are slightly smaller.

There are twenty triangles, so there
are twenty hexagons around a football. It's a bit trickier to count
the pentagons, but there's one at the top, one at the bottom, and ten
across the middle (two rows of five, and remember the left and right
sides join to make two, not four, pentagons) for a total of twelve
pentagons. Twenty hexagons plus twelve pentagons is thirty-two total panels.

Paint the pentagons black, and the hexagons white, and you've got a football!